Some days all I want is to squeeze every last drop of life out of time---to sing at the top of my lungs, off key and off beat, to watch clouds migrate across the sky in constantly changing forms like half-made creatures suspended in God's mind's eye, to dance like no one's watching (preferably while in fact no one is watching), to climb a mountain, swim in a lake, to watch ants rearrange the pebbles around their home and, with little twigs, to assist them with their enormous tasks, to tell people that I love them, or better yet to show them that I love them, to be joyful, to be sad, to be heartbroken, to fall in love, to be dreadfully serious, and to laugh at myself for my seriousness, to fall quiet and be still and feel time like the water of a river running through my bones and destined for some fathomless eternal sea.

Eventually all rivers run dry. All created things come to their end. And meanwhile here I sit like an enraptured clown on the riverbanks trying foolishly but blissfully to count every passing drop.

alhamdulillah